Sponsored: Can Toyota i-Road Break The Traditional Mind Set?

The first time i read about Toyota i-Road was when Toyota did a test driving in Tokyo, i saw the news and couple of youtube videos were it was twisting and turning in a narrow suburban road with ease.

My initial reaction was that i got amazed at the change of design from normal tradition cars, i always had a notion of how a car design needs to be and how a car needs to move. But Toyota i-Road completely broke my perception about cars in general, i always believed a car needs to look like every other car on road and needs a bit more space on road to move safely but in reality the city roads are narrow and filled with other huge cars.

The best description of Toyota i-Road i can give is its a combination of motorcycle and a car, meaning it provides with the convenience and agility of a motorcycle while retaining the comfort and stability of a car.

We all know how big of a struggle it is to maneuver even a compact car let alone a huge SUV on narrow city roads, there are just too many blind spots for the driver to safely drive with out getting the car scratched. The i-Road on the other hand has no blind spots for driver due to the way it is designed, the driver of the car gets to enjoy ease-of-use and maneuverability which no other current car can offer.

The Toyota i-Road is just tall enough and wide enough to accommodate a single person. It has two wheels in front which moves independently and allows the i-Road to lean when you corner just like when motorcycle leans in corners but the lean angle is selected by vehicle which results in safety. In the back there is one wheel which can rotate at low speeds which helps in tight parking spots, but it remains pointing straight at high speeds. The i-Road is powered by lithium-ion batteries and hence there is no CO2 emission, on a single charge it can go up to 50 kms.

But even with all the options i-Road provides for parking at tight spots i feel in future there will be no place at all to park the car and hence we need to start car sharing instead of owning them, There is this i-Road car sharing project which was launched on 1st October 2014 called Citelib by Ha:mo in Grenoble, France. I hope these Toyota i-Road car sharing service projects do start in other cities all around the world too.

Like me am sure every one is already tired of the traffic congestion, parking space and many other issues which we face on daily basis in the city life and we all know that this is just the beginning and it will only get worse in future. If this needs to improve the urban city dwellers need to change there mentality about how they perceive there car and the commute. We need to start thinking practically that we don`t need to have a sleek looking piece of metal in front of our house all the time. They need to understand that at the end of day all we need to do is move from point A to point B with minimal amount of stress.

There will be reduction in traffic and other issues only if the people stop thinking of owning there own cars and start sharing cars. I want to ask what is the point of having a car in front of your house 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, when we only need it for few hours a week. We all need to start thinking about and giving as much support as possible to projects like to make the future a better place to live in.

The Toyota i-Road has broken my way of thinking about future of mobility and i hope it will change of others, else i see a dark, traffic filled, congested and polluted future.

This post has been sponsored by , but all thoughts, emotions, experiences and feelings are our own.